


Death can be undone, love cannot

by fairytaleofdust



Category: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Love, Romance, Time Travel, make Cassie and Cole happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-21 06:15:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11351562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairytaleofdust/pseuds/fairytaleofdust
Summary: It was over. The world was reset and there was no more virus, no more 12 monkeys. They did it. Dr. Cassandra Railly was an accomplished woman who was simply living her life. Until weird dreams came upon her. Dreams of a dark world, destroyed, and the fight to save it.





	Death can be undone, love cannot

**Author's Note:**

> I know that this is very unlikely, and I don't even know if the science allows it, but I like to think that the fiction part of sci-fi does. I just really want them to have a happy ending.

1

Cassie opened her eyes, not sure of where she was. She could hear birds singing, and the warmth on her back was a sign it was sunny outside the window. The smell of coffee and bacon made her stomach growl, but she still didn’t know if that was real, or just a dream. A phone on the nightstand beside her started to ring, and her heart jumped. She reached for it, and saw that it was an alarm. As she swiped to stop it, she noticed the picture on the lock screen. It showed her, smiling next to a man. Someone she wasn’t sure was alive or not.

The man in the photo entered the room, startling her. “Hey, you, sleepy! Time to wake up!”, said Aaron, carrying a tray with breakfast. She stared at him, and felt tears coming as he sat next to her, and placed the tray on her lap. She held his face with both hands, and he understood it as a sign, giving her a quick kiss. She felt weird.

“What…What’s going on? where are we?”, she asked, looking around the room she barely recognized. It all looked too normal.

“What are you talking about?”Aaron frowned, and took a bite of toast. “Eat your breakfast, you’ll be late!” “Late? for what?”

At this point, Aaron noticed something was wrong with her.

“Cassie, what is it?”

"What year is it?” It felt like a weird question to ask, but she really wanted to ask it, her blue eyes looking terrified as she waited for an answer.

“What’s wrong? Did you have a bad dream?” She didn’t know. Something was wrong in her head, and she didn’t know what. A series of weird pictures were mixed up in her mind, and she couldn’t tell reality from fantasy.

“Cassie! Look at me!” Aaron held her shoulders as he caught her attention. “It was just a dream. hey! You are Dr. Cassandra Railly, head of the CDC. Today is September 23, 2018, and you are going to make a very important announcement to the world in a few hours.”

2018? Announcement? She had no idea what he was talking about.

“The Kalavirus, Cass. You are going to announce the erradication of the virus.”

As he mentioned the Kalavirus, some images came to her head. The image of a dead world, devastated by the disease. Communities living like savages, scavengers looking for food and shelter. A red forest. Cole.

“Cole?” she uttered, and he had no idea what that meant. Neither did she, as a matter of fact. “Cole? Who’s Cole? Is he that weird-looking scientist that is always calling you? Should I be jealous?”

She once again stared at him, not sure if he should be there, talking to her. As she reached to touch his forehead, she noticed the ring on her left hand. An image came back to her. Cassie and Aaron, 2016, a simple wedding at the beach, a few months before his campaign for congressman. A few months before the outbreak of the Kalavirus, an unexpected disease that killed many people, but that they were able to contain before it became an epidemic. And today, she was going to tell the world that the virus was officially under control.

“No. I think it was just a dream. There is no one named Cole.” She smiled, and took a sip of her coffee.

___.._____.._____.._____..

2

A week goes by like seconds when you’re busy, and Cassie was super busy this week. She only noticed it was Friday when her last colleague said goodbye before going out for drinks.

“Don’t stay here, Cass. Go home. it’s Friday.” The woman said, before waving goodbye. She had been staying late all week, for no good reason. After the press conference where she announced the official control of the Kalavirus, Cassie kept thinking about the strange thoughts that caught her that morning. The fact that a weird woman kept waving at her and calling her name behind the reporters didn’t help.

“Cassie! Cass! it’s me! Jennifer”, but she didn’t know any Jennifer. She made sure the woman was kept away from her, and locked herself in her office. It felt as if she did that all week. The woman showed up a few more days until she didn’t, and Cassie didn’t feel like going home. Aaron’s presence still felt uncomfortable. She searched her mind for memories of her wedding, and her marriage, and it was all a blur. It was as if Aaron wasn’t supposed to be there. She was distracted, immersed in her own thoughts when she was interrupted by the security guard.

“Excuse me, Dr. Railly? There is a woman outside, she really wants to see you.”

“Uh… Tell her to set an appointment, Douglas.”

“She really wants to see you now. She insists.” The man looked tired, as if the woman had drained all his energy. Cassie took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry, Douglas, but I’m going home…”

“she asked me to give you this. I checked, it’s safe.” and he placed a piece of paper on her desk. She looked at it, suspiciously, before reaching out and opening it. It was a simple drawing, but it brought memories that she didn’t know she had. Suddenly, it was all clear, or at least, as clear as it could be. She waved at Douglas, ordering him to let the woman in without looking up. Right after he left, she dropped the paper onto her desk, and folded her arms, as if a cold breeze had just past through her. She merely sat there, looking at the drawing until Jennifer showed up at her door.

“You know what they say… Not every caterpillar…”

“Becomes a butterfly” Cassie whispered, a tear running down along her cheek. Jennifer’s drawing was a beautiful butterfly, like the one she remembered getting for christmas.

——.——.——.

3

“What does it mean?” Cassie asked, still baffled, unable to look away from the charcoal butterfly.

“To be honest, I don’t know. You shouldn’t remember, maybe it is Jonesy’s mumble jumble that remained in your system, but technically you’ve never had any of those shots. it all reset”.

“But you remember everything…”

“Primary.” Jennifer tapped her forehead, smiling at Cassie. “It’s all still here, clear and unclear, present, past, future, all in one.”

“So, we did it. We fixed it.”

“Yeah. All gone. all fixed and done. No more monkeys” Cassie searched deep inside her mind, and things were slowly coming back. The army of the twelve monkeys, the witness, Titan… Everything still looked like a weird dream, but somehow she knew it all happened.

“Is there anyone else?” Cassie asked, trying to remember the people who fought beside her.

“They are all kids now. They have no memory because it hasn’t happened for them.” The realization struck Cassie like lighting. “Do you think…”

“In 2046, maybe they remember. will remember. remembered.” She grazed her fingers through the butterfly, grasping at the memory. It was nearly gone, those years in the house of cedar and pine, as it had beed undone twice now. It was merely a faint image, that still made her heart flutter. “I’ll never see him again.” she stated, her voice cracking at the thought. Jennifer looked down, and then whispered.

“Well, I was thinking… If you remember, maybe someone else remembers. Someone who exists in this time… Someone who…”

“Someone who can start it over!”Cassie stood up, staring at Jennifer. She knew exactly where to go, as she had done it before. She had to find the one responsible for everything. The mad scientist. She had to find Katerina Jones.

Her phone vibrated on the desk, making a startling sound that took them from their conversation. It was Aaron. Cassie sat back down, and hesitated before picking up the phone.

“Hey. Yeah, I know. I just have something important to solve. I’ll be right home.” Aaron said he loved her, but she didn’t reply. Instead, she rested the phone on her desk, while looking at Jennifer.

“What are you going to do?” the primary asked, feeling sorry for her friend.

“I need to talk to him. then, tomorrow, we can go find Jones” ]

—.——.——.——.

4.

Jennifer found Cassie standing by her car, observing a few kids playing at the park. She recognized two of them, a frightened little boy, with shaggy hair and otter eyes, sitting next to a tall, protective boy, clearly older than him, acting like an older brother. “He will remember you. We just need to get there.” Jennifer whispered as she approached Cassie, and held her hand.

“I don’t know if what I’m doing makes any sense. I have a life here. It’s all solved, just as we always wanted. There is no plague, the virus is gone. Aaron is alive. I just…”

“You can’t get him out of your head.” Jennifer completed, as if she also felt the same. Cassie knew that the girl had feelings for Cole too.

“We all came back to where we started. What if we shouldn’t pursue this? What if it’s better to leave things as they are? Maybe time doesn’t want us meddling with it anymore.”

“We’ll know that once we find Jonesy, won’t we?”

Dr. Katarina Jones had no idea what those women in front of her were talking about. she had briefly researched it with her ex-husband Elliot Jones, but the project had been abandoned for years. Jennifer tried to incite some memories, but for Cassie, it was clear that it was the end of the line when a little 3-year-old girl came looking for her mother.

“Hannah, please go back to Frida, please.” The doctor begged, holding the little girl’s arms down, as she was reaching for her. “I’m really sorry about that”. Cassie couldn’t believe that Jones went back to being that bitter woman who didn’t want her daughter. She would give anything to have a chance to have her son back, even for a brief moment. That’s when…

“Dr. Jones, in that reality, you thought you had lost your daughter to the plague, but our time traveling saved her. I saved her. You may not believe me, but it happened. Now, we saved the world, and I am grateful for that, I wouldn’t ask anything else, but I cannot live my life without knowing. Please, if there is any chance your husband’s research is still active, please, I beg of you. For your daughter.” Jones looked at Hannah, and picked her up, caressing her blonde hair. She paused for a minute, and then remembered.

“Elliot mentioned once that they had a facility, and they would start the construction of the machine. After that we split, so I don’t know whether the project went forward or not.” Of course. Raritan facilities. If there was one place to look, that was the place.

“What about your research? do you still have it?” The woman looked down, and brought her daughter closer, almost as if she was apologizing for having her, while telling Cassie she would never have her life back. “I still have some notes, but everything is still very raw. I haven’t even thought of a serum before you mentioned it to me. I’m sorry.” Cassie swallowed, disappointed, and turned around. Jennifer gently grabbed her arm, and the women looked at each other. It all seemed over.

Later that night, she had an honest conversation with Aaron. He looked at her, perplexed, while she told him everything she remembered. When she was finished, he held her hand gently, looked deep into her eyes, and Cassie felt as if he thought she was crazy. He did.

“Cass, honey. Do you realize how crazy that sounds?”Aaron said, and she felt not only offended, but a bit betrayed. It was the same story, again, and he didn’t believe her. “I know, but it happened. well, we undid it, but it happened to me. You see, time travel is crazy like this. Just because we changed it, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Time goes around me.”

“Cassie, you are saying that in an alternative reality the world was devastated by the Kalavirus, and that a man came back from 30 years from now to warn you and stop it. You said it yourself, the Kalavirus was unexpected, but it was actually easy to control.”

“Exactly! it was easy to control because I already knew it.”

“From traveling through time?”

“Yeah!” Aaron didn’t seem convinced, and Cassie was annoyed. she couldn’t afford having to convince him all over again. She remembered quite clear what had happened the first time. “And in all this, I died because I betrayed you?”

“You teamed up with the army of the 12 monkeys and gave up our location. You nearly killed Cole.” Aaron scoffed. “It seems to me I did the right thing. This Cole put you in incredible jeopardy. After I died you were shot, had to learn how to fight, became this warrior, you are not this, Cassie. You are a medic, you take care of people, you don’t kill them. And to top it all off, you gave birth to a man you thought was the destroyer of the world? a time traveller?” Aaron stopped talking for a second, reading Cassie’s eyes. He took a deep, comprehensive breath.

“You want it all back, right? I mean, not the plague, or the destruction. But you want him back.” Cassie had tears in her eyes when she looked at him. She knew it was going to hurt him, and she never forgave herself for what happened to Aaron before. But she couldn’t do it. even if she never saw Cole again, or even if they were bound to meet only when he had his memories back, in 30 years, she couldn’t build a life with Aaron. If wouldn’t be fair.

“I…I know it’s hard to believe it” her voice failed, and the tears rolled down her face. “But it’s the best for both of us. There is a reason I didn’t lose those memories after all, just like my time in 1959 wasn’t erased. I…”

“You love him.” Cassie nodded. Aaron gave her a kiss on the forehead, and then moved away.

Alone in the bedroom, she threw herself on the bed and started to cry, not knowing what was going to happen now. Her only hope of trying to travel to 2046 to see Cole again was gone, and she had to convince herself that those memories were going to remain as memories. She spent some time looking at the moon through the window, thinking about Cole and the few opportunities she saw him smile. She remembered their time together in the 19th century, going after their son and practicing waltz for the big red death ball. those were the pure moments that would never die, the moments that she felt truly loved, even with all the destruction that followed them.

She thought about Athan, and the man he had become, even though she never had the chance to see it. His nature was strong, and he became a good man. He was never who they said he was, he was her son. And with that image of the boy that looked like Cole, but had her eyes, she fell asleep.

—.—.—.—.—

5.

She knew it was a bad idea from the moment Jennifer proposed it, but they had to at least try. It wouldn’t serve any real purpose, Cassie knew, but she had to see it. It would at least put her mind at ease that she was not going crazy. They broke into Raritan facilities late at night, 1 week after seeing Jones. Everything had changed in Cassie’s life after those memories came back, all she had left was the strange friendship with the quirky primary beside her. She observed as Jennifer tried to break the lock that would open the first door of the building she knew so well, but was entering for the first time. “According to the youtube video, if I move this way… and do this” a click proved that Jennifer had learned well from the tutorial video. The door swung open before them, and they walked through the corridors. “It’s so strange, walking in here like this. It feels like nothing really happened”.

“But we still know exactly where to go to”, Jennifer pointed out, as Cassie made a turn to the left. She was going towards what was her bunker. Cassie stopped, noticing what she had done, and laughed. “Sorry. Habit.” she said, and Jennifer let out one of her high-pitched groans. “It feels so good to know that you feel the same as I do. It’s like we’re sisters.”

“I wouldn’t go that far, Jennifer. I’m still not primary”.

“Athan was.” Jennifer said, and Cassie looked at her. “You spent time with him. Tell me what you remember.”

They spent the rest of the walk to the central room talking about Athan. Jennifer had received the mission to save him when he splintered right after being shot, following their metting with the army at their home. Athan was smart, and he had control of his visions. Being primary wasn’t confusing and scary as it was to Jennifer. It was part of him. He taught her to use what she knew to her benefit, and believe in herself. It was him who taught her how to save the world. Cassie smiled more and more as she listened to Jennifer talking about her son. The son she never really got to know, but was proud and happy he existed.

As Jennifer told her about his patience, they opened the last door separating them from the big, scary machine that once was a big part of their lives. They stepped into the room together, but had complete different reactions to it. Jennifer jumped up and down with excitement, happy to see that her old friend still existed, even though it was abandoned. Cassie felt her stomach flip. She remembered the first time she saw the machine, a few minutes before being shot by Ramse and then sent to the unknown by a desperate Cole. By that time she was already determined to dedicate her life to the cause he brought her, and she could see in his eyes how sorry he was for doing that. Despite that and all the difficulties, she never once was sorry for choosing to follow him. Now, she was determined to find a way back to him.

“Do you think it works?”, asked Cassie, still mesmerized by the monstrous machine she thought belonged in her dreams. Jennifer was way ahead of her, fumbling with the controls. “Let’s see!” the woman flicked some switches, and Cassie shouted, scared she was going to do something wrong. But Jennifer and the machine went way back, and she knew exactly what to do. With a loud whirl, the machine trembled and lit up, the waves of time illuminating the whole room.

Cassie looked at the chair in the center of it, almost as if expecting someone would appear there.

“Elliot did it!” Came a voice from behind, and both women turned around, startled. Katarina Jones was walking into the room, a flashlight in hand, what proved that she had done exactly what the others had. “What are you doing here?” Cassie asked, approaching the German lady.

“I had to see it for myself. I may not remember it, Dr. Railly, but I believe you. I believe in all of this. It was the reason I married Elliot, probably. So if you tell me that it works, and that I did it already, I believe you. Also, if my calculations are correct, I will remember when my life in this reality catches up with the moment in my life I started it in the other reality, so I’ll remember you soon.

“Wait. Do you really think that?”Cassie asked, hope coming to her eyes. “So that means that…” “Everyone else will remember, eventually”, Jennifer interfered, not as a realization statement, but as a fact. She knew it. “He will know you”.

Katarina opened a suitcase and took out a pile of notes. “I believe that know that I have seen the machine, I can move forward with my research. I can’t promise you anything, and I can’t know how long I will take, but I can try…”

“You’ll make the serum.”Cassie said in a whisper, and a mix of fear and excitement came to her heart. “Take the time you need.”she said, not truly believing in it. She wanted it now, it was hard to imagine moving on with her life while she waited.

—.—.—.—.

6.

“Where are you right now?” Cassie thought, walking around room 607 of the Emerson Hotel. She had to tell the receptionist she had some numerology, supernatural reason to want that specific room. The man gave her the keys with a puzzled look. What would a woman like her be doing at a wrecked joint like that?

She grazed her fingers through the walls, the sofa, the cabinet where their photo from 1944 would be. Had been. She thought of that whole year in 1958 they spent together, working at the factory everyday, looking for the primary. A whole year they spent sharing this room, wasting their time together because of silly reasons. If only she had known what she knew now, she would never have insisted on Titan. She wouldn’t have ran away from him like she did. Cassie smirked at the thought. Of course she couldn’t have known what she does, things had to happen like that. the goddam loop.

The vibration of her phone echoed around the empty, dusty room. It took her out of her thoughts in a jerk. She swiped it and placed it on her ear.

“Katarina?”

“it’s ready”

. __.___.___.___.___.____

7.

“It was easier than I thought. It felt like I…”

“already knew what to do? Yeah” Cassie completed Katarina’s words, both baffled at the whole idea. It took Dr. Jones only about 8 months to finish developing the serum, and although it had felt like forever to Cassie, the moment she saw the injection ready in front of her, she wished she had more time. What kind of future was she going to step into? Was the machine really as ready as Jennifer was saying? Cassie knew Jennifer had a weird connection to the machine and time, but it was a different reality. What if the machine was about to reduce her to shreds? She took a deep breath, and turned her thoughts to Cole instead.

Multiple times in these 8 months she had wanted to go talk to him, the boy at the orphanage, let him know her, at least, so that even if he didn’t remember it all, he would remember her. Every time she ignored these feelings, as she would just probably scare the little boy, but right now she wished she had, just in case. A memory, proof that she was real. And then, she remembered. She pulled her sleeve up and for the first time in 8 months she looked at her wrist properly. She looked, and found nothing. Her watch wasn’t there. She remember giving it to him in the other reality, and he kept it on his wrist so they would always find their way back to each other. Causality had to be completed, and it all started with him getting her watch from her corpse at the CDC.

Now, that would never happen, so what does not having the watch mean? She searched deep into her thoughts, trying to remember whether she ever had that watch in the first place, to see if it was a piece of the puzzle, or just another memory of something that didn’t matter now. “Are you ready?” Said Jones, and Cassie looked up to find the doctor with the injection at hand. She finished pulling her sleeves up, and gave her her bare arm. Jennifer hissed as she observed Cassie being injected with the fluid, and then looked kindly at the doctor.

“You’ll find him.”

“Are you just saying this, or do you know it?”

“You never believed me anyway.” Jennifer smirked, and pulled Cassie into a hug.

“Aren’t you coming?”

“I only produced 1 serum” Jones said, confused. She didn’t know whether Jennifer would want to go anyway.

“No, no. I’m there but to my own time. I have things I have to do here. We’ll see each other again. Soon.”

“in 30 years.” Cassie moved slowly towards the chair. each step up the ladder was one less second in her own time. It all felt like madness, following a dream.

As she laid on the chair, she remembered when Cole placed her there, on her very first trip through time. She focused on his face, so close to hers, so kind.

“See you soon.” she whispered, and closed her eyes as time started to move around her.

“Initiate splinter sequence”, she heard Jones saying, and then disappeared.

— — — —

8.

Cassie opened her eyes, not sure of where she was. She could hear the whirl of the machine around her, the strange but familiar warmth of time against her skin. It took her a few seconds to understand what she was seeing. The familiar darkness of the room had been replaced by a well lit, white-walled facility, but everything else looked basically the same. she looked around and found Jones, much older than a second ago, smiling behind her quirky glasses.

“Welcome home, Dr. Railly.” The woman said, from behind her station.

—.—.—.

9.

“After we sent you, I decided to restart the research and reactivated the project. We don’t need it to change the future anymore, but there are a few well-thought changes that come for the good. After 5 years, we started a new project, using the machine for research and development. It is a highly classified government project, of course, and we plan our travels carefully so no causality is altered more than it has to. It has created heated debate on ethics and what-not, but we made it.”

Explained Jones, as Cassie walked around the headquarters. The big panel with the research about the 12 monkeys had been replaced by the thorough research on disease development, battles and disasters they had been able to stop by using the machine. “I had to find a way to be here when you arrived” Completed Jones, and the women looked at each other. Cassie nodded, thankful.

“The memories came to me a few years ago, and the people involved just started to pop as they came. only those who had traveled still remember what happened, but somehow everyone just found their way back here. Dr. Adler, Whitley, Dr. Lasky…”

“Deacon!”, Cassie interrupted, and ran towards the door to hug the man walking in. He looked at her, baffled, and then put her arms around her slowly.

“Cassie! but.. how?” He remembered her, but didn’t know Jones had sent her from 2018. Jones never mentioned it to anyone.

Deacon was a completely different man. As he didn’t need to be the thug leader of the west 7 quarantine zone, he grew up to become a scientist, and was wearing a long white coat and glasses. Cassie laughed as she looked at him.

“Yeah, yeah” the man shoved her, gently, shaking his head, embarassed. “I’ve always wanted to become something important. When the memories came, I decided to become a physicist, as I wanted to join Jones’s project somehow. I didn’t know if she knew.”

“She did” Cassie smiled, and placed her hand on Deacon’s shoulder, proud. “Yeah, but she never told me she was bringing you here.”

“I didn’t tell anyone, in case it didn’t work. I had to think of the possibility the serum I created before I got my memories back wouldn’t work.”

“So no one knows I’m here.. Not even…”Deacon looked down, and proceeded to his station. He still didn’t like to deal with the fact that Cassie would never be his. “He’s one of my travelers. He and Mr. Ramse came to me exactly the same way they had before. Our memories hadn’t come yet, and they were here. I knew them, from what you had told me, and that’s when I started to believe in fate. When the memories came, he insisted I sent him back to you, but I knew you wouldn’t be there. I forbade him, told him you would probably never remember. He doesn’t know.”

“Jones made him a bitter man”, Deacon interrupted, from his desk. “All this time saying that she had seen you marry Aaron, unaware of everything. I have to admit I feel sorry for the guy”. “He went to find you in this time, thought he would be able to see an old version of you, but all he found was a headstone. After you disappeared, Aaron must have thought you died.”

“Oh no.”, Cassie took a deep breath, scared. All this time, and Cole thought she had died. A second to her had been 30 years in the lives of these people, and time played its tricks on them. “Where is he?” Jones directed her to Cole’s quarters, and while she was walking through a much different facility, she knew her way. As she stopped by his door, she could hear him talking to Ramse. Just by listening to his voice, Cassie started to tear up. Finally, he was real. and he was right there.

She heard Ramse’s voice approaching the door, and knew the man was about to open it. She ran around a corner and hid, peeking as Ramse left Cole’s room, closing the door again. As he turned around the opposite corner, she took a deep breath and moved towards the door. She was about to knock when Cole opened the door, and both of them froze. She didn’t know what to do, so she just waited until he did something. He didn’t.

A few seconds later and she began explaining it all. “I remembered it. I was the first to remember. Jennifer came to me and we found Jones. She didn’t remember it, but she believed in us, and sent me here. I didn’t die. I travelled. I’m here.” But he didn’t react. She wanted to touch him, but was scared to. Instead she just waited. She waited until she couldn’t wait anymore, and her body made an involuntary move towards him, but he stepped back. She stopped, upset, and looked down. That’s when he finally reached and placed his hand on her face, like he used to. She closed her eyes, letting the tears fall, and a whimper escaped her partially opened lips. It was all too fast, but to her it couldn’t be fast enough. He didn’t say anything, but captured her lips into a long awaited kiss. she placed her hands around his neck, bringing him closer as he placed his other hand around her waist. She opened her eyes and saw that he also had tears falling on his face, and interrupted the kiss.

“I’m home.” she whispered, and he let out a smile, their eyes locked into each other’s.

—.—.——.—.

10.

He took her around the park and showed her the New york that was in this new future. She observed the kids playing, and the people moving hurried, and the tourists taking pictures of the tall buildings, and she felt relieved to know that it was all back into place. The virus was nothing but a long gone memory. He then took her to the Cassandra Railly institute at the CDC, an institute created to the research of viruses that had been named after the disappeared doctor who saved the world. “It was the first time I remembered. I was going through here, and I saw your name. I had dreamt of one thing or another, but it all came back to me when I saw your picture, there.” He pointed to a plaque with her picture and her name. “I went to Jones, and she told me what she remembered. She told me you would probably not remember, as you had returned to 2016 after we changed it all. Then, I found out you had married Aaron, and then died in 2018. It was all happening again, even after saving the world and changing the future, you died. again.” Cassie snuggled closer to him.

“But I didn’t. I’m sorry you had to live thinking I was dead. Jones should’ve told you I was coming.” Cole smirked.

“That was Jones being Jones. Of course she wouldn’t tell me. I think she likes the drama. But it doesn’t matter now. You’re here. We made it, Cassie. We saved the world, and we found each other.”

At hearing this, she reached for his wrist, and found her watch there. “It was like I never had it, but then I did. It was the only thing that kept me going, looking at this watch. It had to mean that I would find you, eventually.”

“I found you.” she looked up, and reached for his lips.

Later, they were walking down the park, holding hands, and observed as the kids played. Suddenly, a ball came round them, and Cole caught it, and handed it to a young boy. Cassie smile.

“Do you think he…” she couldn’t complete the sentence. She was talking about their son. She knew he had been part of all that didn’t exist anymore, but still she wondered. “I don’t know”, said Cole, placing his arm around her waist. “But I think we can try, and see what happens.”

She smiled at the thought. Here they were, in a healed world, talking about having kids. Everything was back at its place, and she was exactly where she had to be.


End file.
